Thinking about the Unthinkable
How We Prepare for Chaos
By: Haley Graham, Lauren Rutherglen
Shop this article (*affiliate): https://bookshop.org/lists/non-fiction-readin-magazineThis article will take a deeper look into Amanda Ripley's 'The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes–And Why' to discuss the impact of disaster on our collective experience. Do we fight, flight, freeze, or fawn? Are we saviors to those around us, or are we pure survival instincts? And as the threat of disaster looms larger under a new U.S. administration, how are those in the U.S. and other countries preparing in the event of chaos?
Who are you in a crisis? We’d all like to imagine ourselves as the person running into the burning building to save the day, but the reality is that most of us don’t have the hero gene in us like we think we do. So are you the procrastinator– the one who denies the reality of crises for so long that they kill time waiting for water to rise, waiting for the wind to pick up speed, waiting for the fever pitch of panic? Or are you the first out of an emergency exit? Are you cracking jokes to ease the tension? Are you frozen solid? Are you helping others, or are you running on pure survival instinct when push comes to shove?
With a world that feels ever in crisis and a 24/7 onslaught of news to fuel your nightmares, it seems to be a rising concern that, at some point in the near future, many of us could experience some real disasters. Climate-related natural disasters, large-scale accidents, acts of terrorism, or the impacts of war are looming possibilities. And who would we be if that time were to come? Who do the stress hormones in our bodies allow us to be when we’re all fight-or-flight instinct?
I was offered a copy of Amanda Ripley’s The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why, and my natural eldest daughter instinct to be prepared in a crisis kicked in. (I’d like to think that this steers me towards the “More Likely to Be A Hero” camp, but I guess I can’t prove it.) For me, reading the book was an attempt to quell some of that existential panic about the state of the world, but more than that, I’m fascinated by this concept. Can understanding human behavior prepare us for the worst?
When I saw that a friend of mine on BookTok, Lo (@ohmyyylaurd), was reading The Unthinkable, I was excited to have someone to talk to about this. I also was interested in her take, given that Lo is from Canada and I live in Washington, D.C. Neighboring countries on the brink of a trade war, are we more similar than we are different these days? Or is it the other way around?
Although The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why largely focuses on an individual's psyche, Ripley is quick to point out how the pandemic has made an impact on how we cope with crises. She states, “The central lesson of this book and of the pandemic is this: Human behavior matters more than facts, more than policy, more than weaponry. It is just as important to understand the behavior of people as it is to understand the behavior of the virus.”
For many of us, a turning point in how we think about people in crisis was the pandemic.
For Dennis Miletti, a sociologist who has spent forty years studying disaster prevention research, his frustration is a classic American concern– people don’t listen to the experts. It’s not that we don’t have ways of alerting the public; it’s that people don’t always listen. A major example is Hurricane Katrina– people underperceived risk. “The public ignores low-probability but high-consequence events,” as the book states. As someone who lived in Florida for seven years, I can vouch for this. The amount of pride many Floridians take in hunkering down during hurricanes instead of evacuating is sometimes jarring.
And we might tease them for this, but when was the last time that you took out your AirPods to listen to that exit row evacuation plan on the airplane? Or read the manual that explains how to get out of your car if it’s in a body of water? More than half of the people involved in plane evacuations attempt to take their bags with them. We don’t know the disaster plan because we deny that something so low probability could ever happen to us. We just aren’t the type of people that that would happen to. It’s like the start of every true crime podcast or Dateline episode: “It happened in a town where no one locked their doors!”
Call it my anxiety, call it existential doom, or call it being alive in the Year of our Lord 2025, but I am a person who thrives with an itinerary, with a game plan, with a run sheet. It’s partially why I feel like my system would quickly divert into a Type A powerhouse in a mega-crisis. But despite how I might whine when I’m out of coffee creamer or when I can’t fifteen-point-turn my way into a parking spot, I actually do have some built-in survival mechanisms that might do the job. The chances are equally high that I throw up, pee my pants, or faint. The truth is, no matter how much I’d like to think preparedness is the key to keeping ourselves safe, there’s an element of this that’s unknown until the moment of crisis. Until the moment comes, you don’t know who you will be, and that leaves you in a more vulnerable position: you have to trust the people around you.
Lo: If you had asked me a few years ago if I would survive a disaster of any sort, I would have given a confident yes (note: when I lived in NYC there was a terrorist threat where I was and I took the subway home, so no, I don’t have the critical thinking skills to survive). Now, as a 28-year-old in a constant state of anxiety due to a never-ending list of things keeping me up at night (federal politics, geopolitical tensions, grocery prices, people saying reading isn’t political), I sometimes doubt that my current state of mind would even allow me to find the closest exit.
Although Ripley’s book spends a large portion presenting information on the composition of the mind through accounts of psychologists, disaster experts, and scientists, it was Ripley’s take on human behavior (specifically referencing the ongoing pandemic) that I connected with the most. I realized that it is the area where a lot of my recent frustrations and insecurities have stemmed from.
When looking at the U.S. and Canada, I think it is fair to say that both countries have stereotypes that differentiate them. Think “politeness” and “maple syrup” versus “freedom” and “hot dogs.” My point is, that although we are neighbors in a Western society, we have different beliefs, values, and ways of living! I have seen a shift, however, where I live that started in 2016 and has exploded largely due to the pandemic, which has made me question where we are heading as a society. For me, these last few years have created a few layers of thought. Let me break them down.
First, it is important to note that Canada has had its share of far-right politicians/ideology, extremists, and hateful groups that have been around for over 100 years. However, there has been a surge in the number of these groups, and their narratives are becoming increasingly normalized, especially since the takeover of Trump and the COVID-19 pandemic. Mark Freeman, a veteran peace negotiator and head of the Institute for Integrated Transitions, stated, “Like distrust, polarization is a hyper-problem. Our experience is that, inconspicuously and incrementally, polarization can come to threaten everything we hold dear.”
And this rise isn’t just my personal opinion. During the pandemic, Canada was the host of the Freedom Convoy, and citizens protested at local hospitals. At one point, they even exercised their First Amendment rights! (We don’t have amendment rights). Currently, we are on track to elect a Prime Minister who has been compared to Trump. We are actively participating in transnational populism, morphing into the least admirable qualities of current U.S. politics. In our current state, and during our upcoming federal election, I don’t have complete trust in those around me, which would lower my chances of survival during a crisis.
But what the monster created, the monster may also destroy. Over the past couple of weeks, I have noticed a shift in Canadians' perception towards America, particularly due to tariffs and comments from Trump about Canada becoming the 51st state. Video after video on my FYP page has been focused on swapping products to support Canadians and our Prime Minister’s warning that we are preparing for war. And just like that, I feel like the humans around me will be there for me, separate from politics.
Haley: Ripley quotes Daniel P. Aldrich, author of Building Resilience, in saying, “It may be that the most effective– and perhaps least expensive– way to mitigate disasters is to create stronger bonds between individuals in vulnerable populations.” And what gets in the way of that aim? Well, one major element is public distrust, and we know how that went over in the U.S. during the pandemic. “Fake news” and “woke media” claims made it impossible to decipher real science from sweeping understatements. Every media source feels biased, and people are clamoring to find truths that they can be sure of. And in a crisis, when panic is at a fever pitch, how are we supposed to trust a bond with someone else?
The safety of our networks, our communities, and our countries is dependent upon a few pillars, one of the most under-resourced being each other.
Do your elderly neighbors know how to use their generators? Do you know the emergency evacuation route out of your city for a natural disaster? Do your kids know where to go or who to call if you don’t come to get them from school? Do you know CPR? Can you help others get food? Water? An air mattress?
Amanda Ripley and the subjects in this book aren’t doomsday preppers, and we’re not asking you to be either. (Although with a 24/7 news circuit that stalks my waking hours, I’m sure it would take an alarmingly small amount of time to become one.) It’s about being prepared, mindful, and quick to use your resources if needed. It’s about using your strengths to serve those around you while you wait to make sense of disaster.
I highly recommend finding emergency preparedness plans for your city and saving a copy somewhere in case you need it. Most of them will even have things like public works schedules in the event of disasters, road closures, and flood zones. If you know this information and can remain calm enough to communicate it, you have the chance to save the lives of those around you when faced with the unthinkable.
